This sculpture is a unique piece in Ligurian art: a marble carved on both sides depicting St. Anthony of Padua with Jesus and the Virgin and Child. The work, recently curated for display, entered the museum's collections under a conventional attribution to the circle of Pierre Puget.

The sculpture was previously situated at one of the side entrances of the Villa Duchessa di Galliera in Voltri, leading to the nearby Capuchin church of San Francesco. Its exterior position exposed the marble to the effects of the elements, impoverishing the stone surface and compromising a proper interpretation of the sculpture's form, which thus takes on an unintentionally expressive quality, overpowering the lines of the sculptor’s original work.

The attribution of the work to the Puget sphere, to be discounted, reveals that the sculptor should be sought in an artist working in late 17th-century in Genoa, where from the 1660s and ‘70s, having absorbed the teachings of Puget and besides the Lombard workshops, the Genoese artist Filippo Parodi and a generation of artists who had perfected their training in Rome were to work. The unknown sculptor faced the task of rendering two distinct images in a single block of marble, skilfully joining the two sides together, where the profiles of the Saint and of Mary blend into a single face with androgynous features. The images draw on an established iconographic tradition in 17th-century Genoese painting: in his paintings, Valerio Castello proposed a dialogue of emotionally charged gestures and glances, as seen in the Mother and child in the altarpiece of the church of Santa Zita, or in the tender caress Jesus bestows on St Giovannino in the Nantes painting. This intimacy of pose is also found in Puget's Madonna Carrega, in which the Infant draws the attention of his pensive mother with his plump hand, although in that statue the artist focuses on depicting the emotional intensity of the encounter through the exchange of gazes between the characters. St. Anthony, in a standing position, holds the Infant as with a slight movement he withdraws his right leg, while on the opposite side the figure is gently animated through the use of a breeze flattening the cloak against the Virgin’s legs, as in the work of Puget and Parodi.

The evident assimilation of the Puget and Parodi models would suggests for the work a date in the last decade of the 17th century, when the sacred subject, its emotional qualities replaced with a lighter, more subdued tone, became gradually more stylised in its forms and features, such as a finer eye shape, duly seen in the two-sided sculpture in the Capuchin museum.

Recovered by Father Cassiano da Langasco from the Capuchin convent of Varazze  and of Santa Margherita Ligure respectively, these two grisailles depict a favourite subject in Capuchin worship: the Virgin appearing on Christmas night to Felix of Cantalice, who receives the Infant Jesus from her in the presence of Fra Lupo.

The painting from Varazze is generally agreed to be the work of Bernardo Strozzi, with Franco Pesenti being the first to present it as such for the exhibition “L’officina di Bernardo Strozzi” in 1981.

The scene's night-time setting, lit by the glow of the light coming from above, is successfully resolved by the adoption of the monochrome technique, based on cool tones and lifted by the use of whites which lend a vibrant quality to the image.

In the barely suggested space of the church, the artist places in the foreground the friar's kit for collecting alms, a superb still life, while behind the group of figures the inclusion of the clouds renders the space indistinct. The Madonna is seated on a cloud in the act of holding out the Christ Child to the saint, with an angel holding up her cloak behind her. The work is without doubt linked to the altarpiece of the same subject kept in the Capuchin church of the Santissima Concezione in Genoa, from which it differs in several respects.

According to Rita Dugoni, the monochrome is a sketch or model for the altarpiece, commissioned to Strozzi on the occasion of the Saint’s beatification in 1625.

The use of monochrome in the context of the artist's compositional processes is also evident in the Study for the Lamentation over the Dead Christ in the gallery of Palazzo Bianco in Genoa. A date prior to the 1620s was hypothesised by Franco Pesenti, who also believed the grisaille to have been designed independently and then  reused some years later to prepare the altarpiece of the church of the Concezione.

The second monochrome, which underwent major restoration work in 1965, is difficult to interpret as the original paint layer is compromised in several areas.

The painting is generally attributed to Giovanni Andrea De Ferrari. The presence of sections of remarkable quality, discernible in particular in the figure of the Virgin, in the angel's unfolded veil in the hands of Brother Felix, and of other less conceived areas featuring a more compact brushstroke, lead to the belief that the work is from the artist's studio, presumably worked on by the artist himself.

The presence of certain differences, when compared with the monochrome of sure Strozzi authorship is of some interest: a greater definition on the face of Felix, the modelling of Fra Lupo’s features, and the reduction of the knot grasped in the Angel's right hand, appear to be evidence of a stage of output falling somewhere between the monochrome of certain authorship and the altarpiece of the church of the Santissima Concezione.

This exquisite figurative work, cropped on all four sides, attracted the critical attention of both Maurizia Migliorini and Anna De Floriani in 1980. In publishing the results of important restoration work whose removal of crude, misguided repainting helped to restore full clarity to the image, the latter scholar suggested, also given the use of oak wood, a hypothetical parallel with the brushwork of an unknown painter, trained in the French style and active in the decades immediately following the mid-fifteenth century, “familiar with output mainly produced in the south of France”, as also later reaffirmed by Laura Martini. A sound approach which, while correcting Migliorini’s contemporaneous proposal of a proximity to the output of the “Nuremberg school of the second half of the 15th century”, nevertheless did not exclude the possibility of identifying the painter as a Ligurian artist, “unlikely to be an Italian from another region, except, perhaps from Piedmont”. As the scholar states in the same study, on the basis of key oral information passed down by Father Cassiano da Langasco, at some time in the 1940s the panel was in the Genoese church of San Bernadino, before being transferred in 1956-1957 to the convent of the Santissima Annunziata di Portoria, where it is still kept today. According to the learned Capuchin's information, the possibility cannot be excluded that the painting should be counted among the artefacts gathered between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th by Father Pietro da Voltaggio in the church of Santa Caterina di Genova. These artefacts came from religious complexes of the Franciscan order which were closed for worship following the suppressions of 1866.

The panel, probably part of a more complex polyptych - Migliorini in this regard thinks a “hinged triptych”  - within which it would have been in combination with a similar, now lost, painting depicting the Angelo annunciante (Announcing Angel), has recently been the subject of careful critical analysis. These studies revealed that the work rightfully belongs in the catalogue of Gandolfino da Roreto, with particular reference to his late 1490s output, closely connected to the polyptych signed “gandulfinus inxit” and dated 1493, depicting the Assunzione, santi e l’Incoronazione della Vergine (Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin with Saints, Turin, Galleria Sabauda), from the church of San Francesco in Alba. It was Giovanni Romano who recognised in the composition an example of the refined work of the Piedmont artist, an idea solidly confirmed in the studies of Simone Baiocco for whom the composition may even chronologically anticipate the early altarpiece conserved in Turin, in light of “a more direct link to that “Mediterranean” culture which can explain details such as the cloth forming the backdrop to the scene, or the Virgin's nimbus, created with a relief technique as was more customary in painting of the Spanish style”. These are elements to which, in certain respects, the fragile elegance of a distinctly early 15th-century flavour can be added, perceptible in the construction of the flowing folds of the gown, accentuated by exquisite brushstrokes rich with shiny material, much less evident in Gandolfino's later figurative style. Even considering the current lack of certain information regarding the possible historical placement of the work of which this element, perhaps actually conceived as a “folding door” (given the depictions to the reverse of symbols of the Passion, attributable without a doubt to the same hand) was a part, it may however be correct to consider the painting as coming at the very least from a convent of the same order, located in the southern Piedmont region and in particular in the Alessandria area, where the Asti artist's output was met with widespread approval; this work could be an expression of  the close network of cultural exchanges which had linked this area to the artistic events of Genoa since the late 14th century. Gandolfino was not unaware of this connection, and it was in fact a major influence on the creation of his exquisitely refined style. This link is distinctly evident in the Vergine annunciata (Virgin annunciate) in the convent of the Annunziata di Portoria, as well as in references to the art of Ludovico Brea, contacts which may have been originated by a young Gandolfino's familiarity with the Genoese scene or by his stay “elsewhere in the Ligurian region”; a situation in which, after an early training under his father Giovanni, himself a painter, Gandolfino may have begun to spread his own wings.

The centre of the antependium is dominated by the Franciscan coat of arms, standing out within a vibrant sunburst. The cross is surrounded by the motto of St. Paul: “ABSIT GLORIARI NISI IN CRUCE” (= “Never glory save in the cross”), from the epistle to the Galatians. The frame is trimmed with blue listels and embellished with a garland of alternating yellow and purple flowers.

The entire covering is in straw, and the particular way in which it is arranged on the surface (scales, herringbone, mosaic) produces extraordinary effects of light and colour, created by the direction of the fibres which reflect the light in countless different ways.

Its style, so geometrically severe, is austere yet elegant and graceful, and reveals a rationalistic predilection for details.

The piece's simple sobriety echoes the ideal of poverty in Capuchin life.

The work is signed by the artist to the reverse, on the upper part of the frame: “P.F. Raffaele da Genova 1879”.
Work restored in 2000 by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence.

From the early 1640s the career of Orazio De Ferrari was marked by a close sequence of altarpieces intended for the Capuchin churches. The first in the series is a painting, signed and dated 1643 and now kept in the church of Saints Nazario e Celso in Arenzano, portraying the meek figure of Spanish saint Felix of Cantalice for the devotion of the faithful. This is followed by the two Pontedecimo paintings, one of which is presented here (restored with state funds in 2009 by Aurelio Costa and Francesca Ventre), and the two altarpieces sent to Sardinia for the Capuchin foundations in Villasor and Quartu Sant’Elena. From the period of his full maturity comes one of the peaks of Orazio’s entire output, the Comunione della Maddalena (Last Communion of Mary Magdalene), a work intended for Porto Maurizio and now kept in Sanremo. Unfortunately, only a fragment survives of the upper part of the painting sent to Pontremoli - then part of the Province of Genoa. It should also be noted that the painter's will, drawn up on 14th September 1657 when the artist was dying of the plague, gives orders for the repayment of a sum to the Capuchins, probably a deposit received for a work that was destined never to see the light of day.

As mentioned, the restored painting came from the main altar of the church of Pontedecimo, and for many decades, prior to its restoration in Portoria, it was equipped with a mechanism in order for it to be used in the devout practice of “uncovering” (the usage to keep a painting covered, and unveil it only in given moments). During the restoration, the complex wooden framework and the metal perimeter strip used for the purpose were removed - although not destroyed - as their presence could no longer be justified. In doing so it emerged that the altarpiece had been reduced in size and that the metal strip had been concealing around 4 cm of painted canvas on each of the longer sides. Removal of the relatively limited repainting allowed the Virgin’s red gown, enriched with lacquers, to regain its original vivid hue; cleaning also restored the refined counterpoint of the mother-of-pearl greys characterising the patches on St Francis’ robe, as well as the rays of the aurora consurgens spreading over the imaginary landscape in the lower part, strewn with references to the Marian titles such as ianua, turris and fons (door, tower and fount).

As far as dating is concerned, I consider it reasonable to place the painting close to 1650, some years after the completion of construction work on the convent, a completion which the anonymous compiler of the Notizie del Convento di Pontexmo cavate dall’Archivio del medesimo Convento (Genoa, Archivio Provinciale dei Cappuccini, ms, after 1815) places in 1645.

St. Luke is the only one of the evangelists to specify that the announcement of the birth of Jesus to the shepherds took place while they were “keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:8), while it is St John who defines Christ as the “light of the world” (John 8:12, 9:5) which, much like the “great light... that the eyes could not bear” described in the Gospel of James (19:2), unifies and characterises not just the painting under consideration, but also illustrious prior examples. These range from Correggio's celebrated Notte (Nativity or The Holy Night) and Cambiaso’s renowned experimentations, to the altarpiece in Fermo by Rubens and subsequent versions from the local school, including Domenico Piola and Gaulli.

Thanks to restoration carried out by the Laboratorio delle Scuole Pie in 2007, the painting today is in good condition and its execution can be discussed with a certain confidence.

Initially the artist was thought to be Domenico Fiasella, who during his time in Rome would certainly have had the opportunity to appreciate many “candlelit” works by transalpine artists present in Rome at the same time, such as Van Baburen, Van Honthorst, and Terbrugghen, including the altarpiece intended for Fermo which Rubens worked on in the spring of 1608. This particular contact appears to be proved by a small painting, made known by Piero Boccardo and Anna Orlando, whose true protagonist, besides the iconographic subject, is the nocturnal atmosphere itself, in which can be discerned a shepherd “in a  semi-genuflected position of Cambiaso-esque origin which revises the corresponding Rubens figure, from which it also takes, reversing them, the gaze and gesture of the boy beside him”. In the same way, similar figurative parallels in the painting under consideration, very close in layout to the small painting in a private collection, can also be traced: notably the pointing figure on the right, while on the left is St Joseph leaning on a stick, and in the centre, the light of Christ the Saviour come to the world, gazed upon by the Virgin who, in the work here displayed, is not lifting her veil in Raphaelesque style, but lovingly encircles the straw crib in which the baby Jesus lies.

Despite this convincing attribution, it would be remiss to overlook the possible role played by the most skilled and loyal of Fiasella's collaborators, Giovanni Battista Casoni, by virtue of a brushstroke which is visibly looser and more dynamic when compared with Fiasella's customary technique, of particularly effective and softly modelling skin highlights, of a hollow mark used for the shepherds’ expressions, and of a certain hesitancy in the volumes typical of the way Casoni depicts his figures. Even the physiognomic qualities of the Virgin Mary’s face seem to be far from the known, firm Fiasella type and are, if anything, closer to certain paintings now conclusively attributed to his pupil.

When the work was donated to the Capuchin monks in 2002, it was registered as a copy after Van Honthorst, without any reference to the local school, which seems, without doubt, to be the more correct basis for reference. A timeline of output between the 1650s and ‘60s  would also seem to bear out the possibility that what we have before us is a work by Casoni, reminiscent of the Fiasella style but carried out with a certain autonomy of painting style and execution.

According to verbal reports from Father Cassiano da Langasco, the sculpture came to the Capuchin convent in Portoria from the Augustinian church of Santa Maria in Passione in Genoa, a placement which could only have occurred in the 19th century, however, when the building housed the Canonesses Regular of the Lateran. The lack of information regarding the ancient origins of the artefact make the reconstruction of its history particularly difficult, not to mention the identification of the person likely to have commissioned it. Currently it is therefore impossible to know when The Virgin Fainting reached Genoa and why, and whether it was still integrated within a large retablo depicting the Crucifixion bought by a Genoese patron to decorate the altar of a church building in the city  (in a similar way to the Flemish dossal kept in the church of Santa Margherita in Testana), or whether it was already split from the other wood sections which, when assembled, formed a divided polyptych, and hence possibly destined for private worship.

Deemed in the past to be an element “originating from a Gothic deposition. 16th century”, more recently the Fainting has been the subject of a careful style analysis by Laura Lagomarsino, who proposed a convincing parallel with the Brussels output of the 1460s and ‘70s, highlighting in particular the close stylistic links to the retablo of Scenes from the Passion (Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire), made around 1479 for Claudio Villa of Piedmont and his wife Gentilina Solaro. Important technical information emerging from the restoration carried out in 2004, following which it was possible to free the artefact's surface from heavy, misleading repainting, allowed the confirmation of the work’s attribution to an artist working in Brussels in the late 1400s, possibly at the turn of the century, as certain stylistic features seem to suggest. This refers more precisely to the subtle rendering of the skin tones and the vivid facial features, to the figures’ deliberately posed, yet dramatic, positions, to the arrangement of the folds furrowing their garments and to the intricate female hairstyles, as well as the locks of hair on the head of the young Evangelist, features which do indeed demonstrate a close relationship to Brussels sculpture of the late 15th century. The same exquisite use of colour, enriched in certain points by refined gilding such as that corresponding to Saint John’s cloak, and by the elaborate technique of pressbrokat, as in the garment of the woman in the right foreground, suggests the group possibly originates from one of the finest studios active in the Flemish city during the last decades of the 15th century.

The sculpture, intended therefore to be placed at the centre of a retablo, was made using a single block of oak, the back of which is not carved and on which no wood guarantee markings have been found.

Only recently, and thanks to the discovery of new information concerning the life and work of Lazzaro Calvi, has the Genoese artist's output of altarpieces, well known and considerable overall, found a considered and objective assessment.
The Portoria Deposizione itself, although without doubt one of Lazzaro Calvi's best works, was never given sufficient consideration by critics. The drastic change of position it underwent, probably in the second half of the 17th century, certainly did not help matters, followed as it was by further shifts and repaintings, as evidenced in the brief notes by Soprani, Ratti and Alizeri. This last describes the work as “nothing less than contrived in the chapel by which the sacristy is accessed” and “retouched in several places”.

The Cavanna family tasking the Calvi brothers - Lazzaro and Pantaleo - with the decoration of their chapel, to the right of the presbytery, was in fact an important, prestigious opportunity, for Lazzaro in particular. It gave him the chance to contend with the leading artists of the day in Genoa - Giovanni Battista Castello, Luca Cambiaso, Andrea Semino - who had already been called upon before him to carry out part of the decoration of the Ospedale di Pammatone church. Lazzaro, in all likelihood not yet sixty, therefore deployed every cultural tool available to him, seeking to put all the painting expertise he possessed to good use and sealing his efforts with signature and date (“Lazarus Calvi faciebat 1577”), which he placed in the lower margins of the panel, which was originally destined for the chapel’s main altar.

The composition - with the figures of Mother and Son arranged frontally along a single vertical line from top to bottom, and Jesus’ lifeless legs bent at a sideways angle as his arms are supported by the two pious women, one on each side - borrows entirely from an idea of Michelangelo from the 1540s, by way of one of the engravings taken from it, most likely those by Giulio Bonasone or Nicolas Beatrizet.

The refined colour range keeps to toned down colours, browns and purples, which express with consummate naturalism the time of day in which the Gospel episode takes place - dusk and the approaching night - while also revealing Lazzaro's choice to adopt the studies begun by Luca Cambiaso in those years, in paintings such as the slightly earlier Pietà in Carignano.

The atmosphere of suspended contemplation and the mute interior dialogue between the characters portrayed and the observer clearly demonstrate the skill with which Lazzaro interprets the new religious demands, then arising within the Catholic Church following the end of the lengthy Tridentine debate. The presence of the Jesuits at the church of Annunziata di Portoria in the same years cannot be overlooked: already settled in the city for some time, they officiated at the church for around three decades before moving to the present Chiesa del Gesù.

Gianluca Signorini joined Genoa in September 1988 and, before becoming a footballer, he was known as a man of great personality. He led the team and all the operation on the football pitch. A memorable moment was his moving exultation on June 4th 1995 under the North Gradinata, after learning from the radio the news of the goal scored from Milan over Padova in extra time, thus saving Genoa in the playoffs. After his death on November 6th 2002, his jersey number 6 was withdrawn by the club.
You can see him hereunder, as portrayed by the artist Elisabeth Cyran.